


Forgiven

by Deathtouch



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Flashbacks, Heterosexual Sex, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Men Crying, Multi, Oral Sex, Ramsay is his own warning, Rape/Non-con Elements, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 13:23:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4264809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deathtouch/pseuds/Deathtouch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>☛ in which i write about theon and kyra</p>
<p>
  <i>He had not forgotten the way she sounded. Sometimes he wished he could forget, but it was the screams and panicked noises he would rid himself of, not the other memories.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forgiven

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this fic for my pal [kep](http://keptrefler.tumblr.com/). he is an excellent artist, a good twitter friend, and he is very cool! i hope it's good and that he likes it c: 
> 
> i have never tried to _really_ write theon before, but i did my best! there are some scenes from the book that are referenced in this fic that i read all the way back in 2012. i did not bother to reread them lmaoo. sorry for any inaccuracies. its.. all actually artistic choices done by me the writer to improve theon's narrative arc (awkwardly tugs at collar) anyone buyin this?
> 
> oh and most importantly i have to thank my amazing beta [subwaywolf](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SubwayWolf/pseuds/SubwayWolf) who banged this out in a day. what a champion!! i am so grateful for him and everything he does for me. whether it's a little 3k fic or over 50k, it's all appreciated. i wish i could give him a giant hug for every tracked change i see on the final doc, because i know that's a second (or more) of his time he took to help make my writing better. he deserves all the thank yous, and hugs, gratitude, and appreciation in the world. thank you, subwaywolf. thank you!

_“Theon-”  
  
_ Her voice was the sweetest sound he’d heard in what felt like ages; so sweet, he didn’t even cower at the sound of that name.  
  
It could have been the winter wind howling through the soldier pines, whistling in through the panes of the window. No, no; he knew her voice. He knew the way she sounded. He had heard her giggle and laugh so many times before. He had heard her moan and cry out sweetly in moments of pleasure. He had heard her whisper softly to him in the dark of the night as they curled safe against one another in bed.   
  
He had not forgotten the way she sounded. Sometimes he wished he could forget, but it was the screams and panicked noises he would rid himself of, not the other memories.   
  
Even if his ears were fooling him, his eyes were not. He could see her there, through curls of bath water steam.  
  
She was as beautiful as he remembered.   
  
He would never have called her that; not when he was speaking about her and not to her face. It was true though. From the very first time he'd laid eyes on her, he had known she was beautiful.   
  
The first time Theon had seen her, she was standing in the door way of The Smoking Log. The wind had caught her hair, long and brown with gentle waves, and tossed it in front of her face. She was tucking loose strands behind her ear. Her eyes looked almost green in the sunlight. When she turned and entered the tavern, it was all Theon could do not to go chasing after her.   
  
She wasn't perfect, but that was the point. She blushed a funny color and her bottom teeth were crooked and she never wore her hair in any knots or braids. She didn't even own any nice dresses, but she was human and real and _beautiful_.  
  
She was as beautiful as that now. Her eyes seemed green. They only looked like that in the sunlight though, and there was no sunlight here. Streams of cold overcast light barely brightened the room. Steam from the bath clouded the air, a swirl of misty white. In this setting it was hard to tell who was there, but he knew. He knew it was her, and she was just as beautiful as he remembered. 

 

* * *

 

“A prince?” Kyra turned on her side, peering at Theon over a curve in the featherbed. He could only see half of her face but he could see her lips, and the way she was trying her hardest not to smile. She was failing in the most charming of ways. In the dim light of the bedroom, her eyes looked brown. "You're a prince?"  
  
“You don’t believe me?” Theon feigned, sounding quite hurt.  
  
Kyra bit her lip as her face split into a grin. She managed to stifle a laugh at least, though she hadn’t managed to keep that smile in check. It was odd. Theon didn’t feel like she was laughing at him; she wasn’t. She was just happy. “If every man who told me they were a wealthy highborn lord really was one, I’d be swimming in riches by now.”  
  
“Is that what you’d like?” Theon asked her. “To be rich?” He could make her rich. He had more coin on him than she earned in three months. He could give her his rings, sell his bow… he wouldn’t, of course. But he could.  
  
Kyra reached for the sheets and tugged them up, covering her bare shoulders. She snuggled in to the bed, considering. “I don’t need to be rich.” She decided. “But it would be nice not to smell like ale in the evenings.”  
  
Theon pushed himself up onto an elbow and reached out for the threadbare blanket. It was no sooner that she had covered herself that he was revealing her nakedness again. He dove in head first, nuzzling her shoulder, kissing her soft skin. She laughed sweetly, twisting on the featherbed. Her hands flew to his black hair, knotting up in it. She made little attempt to push his head away.  
  
“I like the way you smell,” he promised her, kissing her collarbone. She did smell like ale sometimes, especially after long nights, but there was more to her than that. Theon was reminded of honey and juniper berries and something delicious that he couldn’t quite name as he kissed her skin now.  
  
“Theon,” she murmured sweetly. Her voice was near a giggle.  
  
“Kyra,” he murmured back, lips trailing over the soft flesh between her breasts. She tasted salty and sweet and he was more than obliged to continue kissing her. He kept his mouth busy, finding new places on her chest that he hadn’t already marked earlier in the evening.  
  
“Theon,” she said again with a little more force. She even gave his hair a gentle tug.  
  
Theon lifted his head, lips reddened, and looked up at her.  
  
“Will you take me again now that I know you stand to inherent a castle some day?” She was teasing him, and her smile told him that plainly, but Theon didn’t mind. There was care and kinship and kindness in her tone that no one else used when they teased him. With everyone else it was some terrible condescending tone that Theon did not care for. “I think it might feel different now that I know,” she concluded.  
  
“Only if you cry out for Prince Theon," he teased her in return.   
  
He fucked her so hard he had her screaming for ‘Prince Theon’ after all. They changed positions twice because they had that luxury, and Kyra went shuddering and squeezing up all tight around his cock more than once in what he guessed was climax. It was hard to tell with her the way she moaned and writhed so much. In the end she was a sweaty mess, hot and sticky. Theon pulled out and finished on her thighs because the last thing he needed was a child running around the tavern with black hair like his. The white of his come painted her tan skin a different color, drying quickly.  
  
He collapsed down on the bed beside her and she happily moved to curl up against him. She pressed her face to his chest, and Theon could feel her brown eyelashes brushing against his skin. “You’ll let me live in the castle with you, right?” she asked, muffled and quiet. Her voice had gone all croaky from moaning so much.  
  
“Hn?” Theon’s mind was still a little fuzzy from his orgasm.  
  
“I’ll come serve ale to you and your guests. How about that?”  
  
“Of course you can,” Theon assured her. “You could be my mistress.” She had to know he was placating her, concocting a fantastic fantasy for the two of them, but she nodded contently anyway.  
  
“I’ve always… wanted to see… what it was like…” her voice was trailing off, sleep creeping in. “inside Winterfell.”  
  
 _You don’t want to see inside ther_ e, Theon thought of telling her. It wasn’t as nice as it seemed. It was always cold for one thing, and the people…  
  
“Pyke’s nicer,” he insisted.  
  
Theon didn’t really remember much of Pyke at all, though. He remembered rain storms that beat water against the castle walls. He remembered the walkways between towers and the way they seemed to bend and sway in the worst of weather. He had always been afraid to cross them and it took Asha shoving and elbowing him as he planted his heels to the stone for him to learn that they were safe enough after all. He remembered the wind that howled up from the sea and rattled his window at night, an awful solemn sound.  
  
Kyra had drifted off to sleep.   
  
Theon reached for her arm and put it around his shoulder. He nestled against her, touching his forehead to her own. In this way it was quite like being held, even if she was asleep. It was easy for Theon to fall asleep, too. He wouldn't need to be back until morning. He was safe with her a while.   
  
When he woke the midmorning sun made everything far too bright. He cracked an eyelid to find Kyra smiling sleepily at him.   
  
“Theon,” she whispered softly  
  
“Kyra,” he whispered back.   
  
“Theon.” She reached blindly for his hand and caught it by the wrist. She guided it between her legs where she was wet and ready. “Will you have me again before you go?”   
  
How could he say no?

 

* * *

 

She knelt beside the tub and reached out with slender fingers to dip them into the warm water. The surface remained still, not even a ripple as she touched. Her skin was warm sun kissed brown, just like he remembered. He remembered the way her flesh felt against his own. He remembered the curves of her body and how soft she was.   
  
He tried to speak, tried to croak out her name, but he'd spent so much time screaming lately he found the act a chore. His voice was barely a rasp anymore but he managed. By the gods, he managed.  
  
“Kyra,” he croaked.   
  
The terrible thought occurred to him that this might be an illusion; a trick. Ramsay might have slipped him dream wine, or some other concoction to cause hallucinations. It was unlikely that he’d offer any type of wine at all, though, not unless Reek had done something deserving of a reward.   
  
He might have gone out and found a girl who looked just like her. That was something Ramsay would do. How he could have found someone so perfectly similar was anyone's guess.  
  
In front of him might have been a trick, or a hallucination, but behind his eyes lay the real thing. When he closed them he saw her. Her skin pallid and grey, missing in places and ravaged in others. He saw the massacre of her body. He saw where the dogs had ripped her limb from limb. There was little left to identify her by. The horrors of her corpse waited for him behind his eyes.  
  
As quickly as he closed them he opened them again. The echoes of her screams were not far off, and if he got lost in that memory he may never climb out again.   
  
“Theon,” she whispered again.  
  
It was her. It was her, it was her, it was her. Beautiful and whole, as though she had not been tortured and murdered. It was her. It was Kyra. Real or not, this was the way she was meant to be seen.  
  
Ugly tears stung his eyes. He hated it when he cried. 

 

* * *

  
  
In lieu of putting her dress back on, Kyra had tugged the sheets from the bed. There was still a corner caught on the bedframe, but most of the off-white fabric lay twisted on the floor, stretching out and reaching over to her ankles. The rest she clutched close to her body, tucked tight under her arms. The wind from the open window fluttered it in places as much as it fluttered her dark hair.  
  
Theon wondered why she wasn’t cold, but she didn’t seem to care about the encroaching winter. She was enraptured with the yard outside. When he moved to stand behind her, he saw torches flickering in the darkness and the blue of the night sky among the black of the trees. It was all a blur of darkness spotted with bright licks of firelight.  
  
“You are a prince after all,” she murmured softly.   
  
In all the doubts he had about capturing Winterfell and keeping it, Kyra’s conviction filled up some empty spot in his chest Theon hadn’t realized needed filling till that moment.  
  
 _Of course I am,_ he thought. _Not here I’m not_ , he thought also.  
  
“Is it as nice as you thought it would be?” Theon asked her. A sweeping gesture of his hand implied Winterfell at large. Hadn’t she said she wanted to see inside the place? It had been so long since they’d been together.  
  
Theon was a different person than he had been then. Kyra was different, too. She was taller, if only by an inch, and her face was less round than it was before. He wondered if war had affected her in some way he could not guess. He wondered what her life had been like while he was gone. It was nice to take his mind off himself and his own worries and focus on her for a moment or two.  
  
“It’s nice enough,” she smiled.   
  
Theon could only see the side of her face as she was looking away, peering out into the night like there was something important out there. Still, he could see the corner of her mouth turn and the way her eyes softened. They were brown in the darkness. He couldn’t wait to see her in the morning. The sunrise would make them green and beautiful.  
  
“Someone told me once that Pyke is nicer.” There was soft humor in her voice, kind and sweet.  
  
Theon wrapped arms around her waist, hugging her close to him. He had missed her, and the way she spoke to him. He leaned in to kiss her neck and the soft of her shoulder. “Is that what you’d like? To see Pyke?” A knot in his stomach twisted when he thought of taking her there.  
  
Kyra did not answer for a long time. The wind fluttered the sheet she wore. Theon felt his own skin grow cold and he nuzzled into Kyra’s neck to preserve warmth. She smelled so sweetly. “I don’t need to see Pyke,” she conceded. Her words were soft as she whispered, carried to Theon’s ears on a breeze of wind. “Just so long as I’m yours in the evenings.”  
  
“Come to bed, then,” he bid her. “I’ll make you mine.”   
  
Kyra was smiling by the time he had her on her back. The sheets were a tangled mess between their bodies, twisted around legs and feet. Instead of covering themselves in the bedspread for warmth, they made their own heat. She moaned his name as he fucked her. He pinned her wrists to the bed and wore her out completely. When he came, he came inside of her. She was breathless with her cries, gasping in pleasure until the very last thrust. Theon did not readily pull out of her, but did eventually.  
  
She reached between her legs as if to finish the job but Theon was having none of it. Though he was spent, he crawled into a more advantageous position and buried his face between her thighs.  
  
“Theon!” she cried, making fists in his hair.   
  
He could not call her name back so he wrote the letters with his tongue instead until she shuddered and came.   
  
“ _Theon_!”  
  
Theon thought she was as beautiful then, sweat slicked and breathless, as she was in the sunlight. Her eyes were exhausted, dark brown and half-lidded. She smiled like she was the luckiest girl in the world, if not the most well-fucked. She opened her arms for him, desperate to keep close contact.   
  
He accepted her embrace, and he hugged her in return. In the morning he would have a castle to run, but when he was with Kyra he could forget about all that a while. It was nice in its own way. He was grateful for her. He might never tell her that, the same way he would never tell her she was beautiful… but it was true.

 

* * *

  
  
At the sight of his tears, she came closer. The details of her hands melded with the swirls of steam. Theon had a hard time deciphering where her body ended and the mist in the air began. From far away she had looked so lifelike, so real, but up close it was almost as if she was incorporeal.   
  
She touched her fingers to his cheek. His tears did not come away, they stayed there on his skin. He could not feel her touch. He thought… perhaps, maybe he could feel it, but maybe it was just an imagined sensation. He had felt her soft fingers before; reaching out for him, sliding against his bare skin, touching him kindly. This was not the same. This felt so empty. He wanted more.  
  
He realized in that moment that he did not deserve her touch, her kindness, or anything else. He did not deserve the sight of her beauty or even the luxury of her memory.  
  
Ramsay had tortured him for years and earned little more than whimpered groveling. In seconds the vision of Kyra had reduced him to tears, and for her he wept openly. It was not a habit of his, crying, but in this moment he could not stop himself.   
  
"I'm sorry," he whispered uselessly.   
  
He thought of sinking into the tub, pushing all the air from his chest, letting water fill it instead. He wished this was a trick, he wished Ramsay was playing a game with him. Both would be easier than facing his own guilt.   
  
“I’m sorry.” He raised his hands from the bath water and brought them dripping to his face. He hid, ashamed of his tears. “I’m sorry,” he sobbed again, choking on his words. “I’m sorry, Kyra. I’m sorry.”  
  
Through the spaces of his missing fingers he saw her. She was blurry with tears and fading away with the steam.  
  
 _“I forgive you,_ ” he swore he heard her say. 

 

* * *

  
  
He heard her screaming. Screaming like they were hurting her. Screaming like she knew nothing but pain. There was no sobbing, no hysterics, no crying. She just screamed and screamed and screamed.  
  
"Theon!" she screamed when she saw him.  
  
He twisted in the grasp of the guards. He fought to see her. She was wrought with blood, but between the slats of her cell he saw her. "Kyra!"  
  
His voice was hoarse and the guards were quick to punch him in his gut, knocking the breath and words from him. He doubled over, feet dragging against the stone floor as they hauled him off.  
  
He could not see the color of her eyes in the dark, but he saw the whites of them so clearly. Her eyes were so wide. The horror in them was so clear.  
  
"Theon!" she screamed again before hands took her. They covered her face, her mouth. They wrapped around parts of her body. She tried to cling to the bars of her cell but they ripped her away. She was screaming again, indistinct and not a name, as they locked Theon away. His cell had no bars, and there was little he could see but he heard her screams.  
  
The next he saw of her was months, years, decades later. She came to him a husk of skin and bone, rattling keys in a trembling hand. Gods, she was so afraid. He was afraid, too. He did not see Kyra when he looked at her; she was not the girl who he made love to and held close to him and kissed sweetly. She was a victim of torture and unspeakable abuses and there was no time for memories, only escape.  
  
In the end, she didn't scream. Ramsay had stolen all her screams from her. Took every last one until she had none left.  
  
They made him look as she crawled to him, body mangled. She covered ground an inch at a time. Tears forced their way from her eyes though she fought them; her strength was unmatched. They were tears of frustration and determination if nothing else. She crawled and crawled and crawled.  
  
One of her legs was trailing further behind her, attached only by a few ligaments. She reached out to Theon with missing fingers where the dogs had bitten them off when they found her.  
  
"Theon," she croaked in a desperate voice.  
  
The men holding him loosened their grip, allowing enough slack that he might pull away. He pretended he was still being held tight. He looked away, refusing to see her face. He did not call her name in response. He did not speak at all.  
  
Just as her bloody palm met his foot, she was dragged away. Ramsay pulled her back to her starting place, drawing lines in the dirt. Her limp left arm twisted in a way arms weren't meant to twist and she cried out weakly.  
  
They made him watch as he Ramsay fucked her again. She grabbed at the grass and hid her face in the earth. When Ramsay was finished he gave her a kick.   
  
"Go on, you can still crawl can't you?” He sneered, breathless and sweat slicked from all the raping he’d done. “Let’s see if you can make it to your savior again."  
  
Kyra raised her head. She looked to Theon in desperation.  
  
He did not meet her eyes. He couldn't call her name, couldn’t complete the cycle, couldn't say a word. He was swallowing vomit back down his throat and blinking away tears.  
  
She curled on her side. A noise of pain came unbridled from her throat. She could not crawl very far, but she struggled towards the dogs.  
  
Ramsay motioned with his fingers and the kennel master set the beasts free. They dove at her, ready to devour. Skinner seemed disappointed she hadn't crawled towards him, and he sheathed his flaying knife.  
  
"Ah. She chose a quick end after all," Ramsay murmured, as if he had not been torturing her for hours.  
  
The dogs ripped the last of her body to shreds.

 

* * *

  
  
The chamber door squeaked open and all at once he recognized he sound of heavy boots. Ramsay’s boots. He wanted to shrink in on himself, to hide somehow. He pulled his knees up to his chest and worried the inside of his lip with the teeth he had left.   
  
“What are you carrying on about in here?” Ramsay asked him.   
  
It was no good to pretend he hadn’t said anything. He hid his face when Ramsay circled the tub. He was standing where Kyra had been. When had she left? Where had she gone? It felt wrong that Ramsay was standing in her place.   
  
Luckily Ramsay dropped the question. A big smile spread across his ugly face. He knelt down and got a good look at the freshly-bathed man in the tub.   
  
“Well, let’s have a look at you. Could it be true? Could you really be a Prince after all?” Ramsay sneered.   
  
He shook his head quickly.   
  
He wasn’t a prince.   
  
He was Reek.   
  
What Ramsay didn’t realize was that Theon had always been pretending. Reek knew that now. Maybe he had always known.   
  
None of it mattered in that moment, anyway; Prince, Theon, Reek… it didn’t make a difference.   
  
It didn’t matter who he was, because he was forgiven.

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! feel free to comment if u like! :)


End file.
